Bringing together my own and other people's visions, thoughts, and beliefs on matters like leadership, change, and personal development. Featuring essays, quotes, book reviews and more. Drawing from people around the globe, known and unknown, alive and deceased,all wise or inspiring in one way or another. Integrating management, psychology, philosophy, taoism, nature, science, art forms, current affairs and not to forget: daily life. The best life to live!

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If you do not adapt, if you do not learn, you will wither, you will die.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

May you live your life...

Thoughts to inspire, thoughts to
provoke, thoughts to reflect, thoughts to oppose… as long as thoughts and ideas
stir up something, whether it be support or opposition, I feel they are dong
their job: stimulating dialogue, reflection, learning, and expansion of our
minds.

Below some thoughts and ideas from
people alive and deceased, known and unknown. May it stir you up, may it create
brain activity.

German
philosopher Immanuel Kant: May you live your live as if the maxim of your
actions were to become universal law.

If you
think about this, what a burden this would be, but also what an eye opener and
a shocker. Just living like this even one single day opens your eyes to the
sometimes huge discrepancy between how we think
we live according to our values, and how we really live and treat people,
nature, property, and animals. How aligned are you and I really with what we
say our values and priorities are?

Harvard Professor and former Medtronic CEO Bill George: Be
likeable, but don’t make decisions just so others will like you.

A distinction
too often forgotten: Likeability refers to things such as showing interest in
others, treating people with respect and dignity, being kind and helpful, and
acting honestly. This is very different from making decisions so others will
like you, which stems from a deep-seated drive to avoid discomfort and pain, or
perceived discomfort and pain. This in turn keeps many of us from doing what’s
better, what’s best, or just what’s right in the face of pending disapproval
and opposition. Thinking mistakes are generally at the heart of this mechanism
rather than just plain lack of assertiveness or personal courage: We often
exaggerate the possible consequences of unpopular decisions. We often treat
temporary loss of approval as permanent or long-term. We often generalize
opposition to one of our many actions as opposition to our total person and all
our actions. This is not smart, this is not according to reality, and it
certainly isn’t helpful in creating a more honest, transparent environment in
which we really learn and decrease blind spots, stalemates and unnecessary compromises.

Greek
philosopher Thales: The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.

I think it’s not so much knowing yourself
that is difficult, but acknowledging what you know about yourself, and acting
on it. Sometimes we are too proud, other times we are too afraid. We too often
(and the ‘we’ includes ‘me’ of course) choose to remain blind to our own
critical flaws. We might choose a couple of minor shadow sides to work on or to
work around, but are we courageous enough to handle the significant ones? And
maybe this is not even the right question. As positive psychology and its
results has taught us, the longtime focus on improving our weaknesses may show
less results than leveraging our strengths more effectively. Either way, truth
to what you know about yourself and acknowledging your whole person and the
effects of both your strengths and your weaknesses still leaves much to improve
on for most of us.

Blogger
‘Leadership Freak’: Get what you want by wanting the right things.

I believe there are many different
ways in which we are suffering from wanting the wrong things. We often chase
objectives according to what our superiors, our loved ones, our social status,
or any other standard imposes on us or: what we think they impose on us. Looking at wanting the wrong thing from a
different angle, we often want big things without starting with smaller
accomplishments that motivate and pave the way to our bigger goals. A third
perspective is that we often want things without really recognizing,
appreciating and leveraging what we already have or are. We are chasing the
next big, hot thing with the chase seeming more important and rewarding than
the accomplishment and the appreciation of what’s already there.

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